An online merchant may provide a large number of items for sale to customers over the Internet. Customers may access information regarding the available items through a website or other information service provided by the merchant. The information regarding the items may include that information required by the customer to identify and purchase a particular item, such as the name of the item, a picture of the item, the price and availability of the item, and the like. In order to enhance the online shopping experience and allow the customer to fully research a particular item, the merchant may provide additional item information along with the purchase information. The additional item information may include customer ratings, product specifications, a manufacturer's description, additional pictures, alternative items, and the like
The merchant may further provide a list of accessories that the customer may wish to consider purchasing in conjunction with the item. For example, to a customer looking for digital cameras, the merchant may suggest accessories such as camera bags, lenses, memory cards, and the like. Traditionally, accessory items are established for each item in the merchant's system manually by administrators of the merchant system. This may require a considerable amount of time and effort by the merchant's personnel at a high cost, especially for a merchant that offers a very large number of disparate items for sale. In addition, the accessory information for the items may not be accurate or easily established for obscure items.
The merchant may also provide a list of other items frequently purchased with the item being considered by the customer. For example, the digital camera described above may be frequently purchased with a particular, compatible lens, or a particular camera bag. This information may be misleading, however. In one example, a digital camera may be frequently purchased with a memory card, but because of the wide variety and sizes of memory cards available, no one particular memory card may rise to the level of being considered “frequently purchased” with the digital camera. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.